


Revivifying

by Ladycat



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-12
Updated: 2014-02-12
Packaged: 2018-01-12 03:05:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1181166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By the third day, Rodney stopped panicking.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Revivifying

By the third day, Rodney stopped panicking.

John was pretty sure that was a bad thing. Rodney not panicking meant either he'd given up, or. Or something he wasn't too sure about, mostly due to the way random flashes of light kept distracting him. It was hard to think when you were constant subjected to your own private fireworks. Especially since John thought that maybe the fireworks weren't very nice.

The planet was a wasteland. Barren rock that made Afghanistan's harsh clime look picturesque, in comparison. It was something out of a sci-fi show: black rock cracked to create a weird sort of hopscotch path, with nothing living or growing on it anywhere. The heat wasn't too bad, at least, which John thought was kind of a saving grace -- a hungry, thirsty, hurting, frustrated McKay would be made infinitely worse if he were _hot_ , too.

"Mm. Water."

"Yeah," John said. His throat hurt, each word a raw scrape -- it made him want to giggle. "Water's good."

"You're slurring!" McKay beamed at him from his dusty, scraped up face. "That's, um. I don't know what the word is. A thing. That's a thing."

John squinted at him. The words were meaningless -- they'd been so pretty much since they'd opened the back hatch. But certain things still percolated up to the top and Rodney bleeding from the face was a bad one. "Hey," he said. "C'mere."

Rodney went, docile as a puppy, still beaming at him. It was kinda creepy. Nice. But creepy. "Yeah, Sheppard?"

"Hold still." He wiped a licked, equally dirty thumb over the sluggishly bleeding scrape over Rodney's left eyebrow. "Makes you look like a pirate," he said, seriously.

"Hey, I'm bleeding! Huh. That's bad, right? I think it's bad." A trace of his former mania still lurked underneath, boyish and beautiful, but the odd exhaustion and thoughtlessness that continually plagued them took primary position. "I should probably stop the bleeding. Right?"

"Right," John said, kissing where he'd smeared blood all over Rodney's forehead. "C'mon, I think there's water that way."

"You do?" The plaintive confusion vanished, Rodney whirling around and almost falling as he did so. "Whoa!"

"I got you." It felt good to wrap his weary, aching body around Rodney's, feeling warmth that should've been a lot warmer, but was still pretty good. "I got you."

For a timeless moment, Rodney didn't move. Barely even breathed, his body dead weight in John's arms. "I don't feel so good, Sheppard."

"Me neither, buddy. Me neither."

There _was_ water. John had always had an uncanny ability to find it -- although nothing else; his sense of direction really was terrible on the ground -- and both of them gave glad cries when they saw silvery, looping cut in the rocks. A stream that looked fresh and clear and not at all brackish, despite the dust that clogged everything, and okay, so the water swirled in funny little whirl pools and they didn't have any purifying tablets, but death by dehydration was a pretty bad thing, John was sure, so he scooped up a mouthful.

"Hey!" Rodney whined, "I'm thirsty too!"

"I'm just checking it," John said with wet, oh, god, wet lips. The water was cold and clean and sharp enough that it hurt as it sank through his torso. It tasted good. "Here."

Rodney obediently leaned forward and lapped at John's cupped palm, the heat of tongue rough and welcome against John's skin. "Mmm," he said, sighing happily. "That's good."

"You know we're being drugged, right?" It seemed obvious with that icy chill running all through him, a distant, removed awareness that watched the two of them stumble around like idiots. "We have to be drugged."

Rodney was sucking on his finger now, eyes half closed around a moan that vibrated through John's hand without ever reaching his ears. "Don' care," he said, mouth full.

John didn't, either. He was pretty sure a rescue would be forthcoming and Rodney's lips and tongue, even his _teeth_ when he started lightly chewing on John's pinky, felt good. He was good, Rodney. He was strong and warm and solid and right then, John wanted --

John could _have_ what he wanted.

Shaking Rodney off and ignoring his pout, John filled every bottle festooned around them and made them both stumble back to the jumper. Inside, John forgot about seats and chose the floor instead, back against the benches.

"I think it's in the air," Rodney mumbled as he crawled into the v of John's legs, leaning back with a sigh of contentment. "S'probably gonna kill us."

"Maybe not."

"Nothing grows here, McKay," John said. The words slipped into the shell of Rodney's ear, where his nose and lips couldn't stop nuzzling. Rodney smelled pretty terrible, but John couldn't get enough of it. "S'gotta be a reason."

"Oh, no, that's cause of the iron content. I bet if we walked off this plain, we'd find things that ohhhh, oh, yes." His hips lifted and rocked against John's hand, already mostly hard. "So we're doing this?"

This being something John knew they'd danced around for weeks. "We're drugged," he pointed out, curling his fingers more tightly. Rodney was hung. Nice. "An' we're probably gonna die here."

"Mmkay," Rodney said, head lolling back against John's shoulder.

Recognizing the symptoms, John curled his arm around Rodney's waist and just held on, instead. He had time, now. Not a lot, sure, but more time to do what he wanted instead of what he needed to do. Maybe the first time he'd ever had that.

Besides. He liked watching Rodney sleep.

* * *

The beeping sound was so foreign that it took both of them a full minute to recognize it.

"Huh," Rodney said, scrabbling useless at his face. The dirt had crusted there.

John pushed his hand away and carefully cleared off the granulated clumps before wetting a cloth and wiping it until pink skin appeared. Rodney wasn't so good at taking care of himself, like this. Neither was John, really, but Rodney was important. He took care of Rodney.

"What's it mean?" His voice was rough from disuse, but it didn't hurt, at least. They went for water every day. He looped an arm around Rodney's shoulder and tucked his chin into Rodney's neck. "Huh?"

"Tickles," Rodney half-laughed. "Um. Think it's -- important?"

"Well, we think so," a clear voice drawled from behind them.

They both whirled, Rodney startling badly enough that John had to pull him up, warm and tight, before they could calm down. It was like something out of a nightmare: dark, spangled night haloing the oddly-shaped creature on the edge of their jumper.

"Um," John ventured. He blinked a few times, the figure resolving itself into a hazmat suite. "Lorne?"

"Don't you worry, sir, gonna have you and the doctor out of here in a jiffy. We're lucky Teyla happened to catch some of the lore about this planet before we took off."

Rodney was nuzzling in against him, so John split his attention. He got cold pretty easily, and spooked a lot. "Lore?"

"Yes, John." Teyla knelt next to him, moving slowly enough that they only tightened their grip on each other. "There were always rumors of a dark, empty place where people would go to release their inner most demons. To become truly free."

John got a hand on Rodney's stomach, pressing just right. Rodney was holding onto his ass through his ragged pants; it felt nice. "So... we were right about the drugging?"

"We will tell you everything, once you have been to the infirmary," she said firmly. Mothering, and nice. Teyla was nice.

Above them, Lorne was doing something with the jumper. The rear hatch closed and it was only Teyla's soft voice and John's worry that kept Rodney calm. "Major?" he barked. It was pure instinct. Good instinct.

"We've got a magnetic pulley-system going on between the jumpers," Lorne explained. It was a pretty dumbed-down explanation, but Rodney liked it, half-crawling up John to peer at the blinking control panels. "We'll have you home in a jiffy, sirs."

Rodney sank back down when John pulled. "Is home good?" he asked.

John thought about that. It seemed like all three were waiting for an answer, but John only cared about Rodney. "It could be," he said, finally.

Around them, the thick, pasty air bled into velvet black, a shimmering circle of blue off in the distance.

It'd be nice to be clean, at least, John thought. And he could still watch Rodney sleep. No, he _would_ watch Rodney sleep.

That wasn't changing.


End file.
